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The grand design: American foreign trade policy, 1960-1968
Abstract
This study analyzed the history of American foreign trade policy during the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Four levels of analysis (international, governmental, societal, and individual) provided a framework to explore two historiograhical problems: the decision-making power structure of U.S. trade policy formulation and the aims, motives, and results of this policy. The campaign for the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 served as a basis for testing four models of decision-making: bureaucratic, corporatist, interest group, and inter-branch. The models were tested in the specific issue areas of textiles, lumber, oil, and carpets and glass. These commodities also were used to validate the interpretations of the "hegemony" or the "comparative-advantage" schools of thought regarding the aims and effects of American trade policy. Under the auspices of the Kennedy Round negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, trade relations with the European Economic Community were the overall focus of the debate between the two schools, but bilateral trade with Japan, Asian less-developed countries, Canada, and Venezuela assumed primary importance depending on the commodity. The inter-branch model, and to a lesser extent pressure from interest groups, was found to determine decision-making on trade matters. The assumptions of the comparative-advantage school generally were most accurate in describing the motives and results of U.S. trade policy.
Subject Area
American history|Business costs|Economic history|International law|International relations
Recommended Citation
Zeiler, Thomas William, "The grand design: American foreign trade policy, 1960-1968" (1989). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9011821.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9011821